In order to protect both material and human assets, it is important to be cognizant of potential hostile activity that may endanger the assets. There are numerous scenarios that may encounter hostile activity, including troop movement and ship maneuvers. Effective surveillance provides information (e.g., images) of potential hostile activity near the protected assets.
Surveillance may be provided by an aircraft or by a satellite that executes a single pass over a large region and is typically restricted in the time of surveillance coverage. Subsequent observations may be limited to the next pass by a satellite or aircraft. The area of interest (e.g., corresponding to troop movement) may be a small subset of the region of surveillance and may consequently require arduous analysis of all of the collected data. Moreover, the corresponding position of the protected assets is typically dynamic, in which movements are often irregular in direction and speed. Thus, effective surveillance requires to be equally dynamic and to be synchronized with the movements of the protected assets.
Thus, there is an important need to protect assets by providing surveillance that tracks the protected assets over the entire time of interest. Moreover, a method and apparatus providing the surveillance should minimize danger to any personnel supporting the surveillance activity.